


Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate

by Callisto



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Jim never came back from any kind of army reunion coherent or sober. Hell, he’d even managed some out and out <i>giggling</i> that night as Blair had attempted a kind of lurch-and-weave maneuver to get him up the loft stairs. It had been so unexpected and utterly charming that Blair had almost dropped him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Ancasta, and written to the first line prompt: Blair never asked Jim about the picture.

Blair never asked Jim about the picture. It had spilled out one night in an ungainly attempt by Blair to keep a drunk Jim upright with one hand and find cab fare in Jim's wallet with the other. Not that the picture was anything to write home about; it was just the way the damn thing was _folded_...

Jim never came back from any kind of army reunion coherent or sober. Hell, he’d even managed some out and out _giggling_ that night as Blair had attempted a kind of lurch-and-weave maneuver to get him up the loft stairs. It had been so unexpected and utterly charming that Blair had almost dropped him. Instead of taking himself to bed, Blair had sat at the kitchen table, sipped some chamomile tea and rubbed his thumb along the fold while Jim had snored softly overhead.

The picture was of the three of them, taken just after Christmas. He, Rafe, and Megan were over-mugging for Daryl and his new camera. Nice enough, but Daryl was no Annie Lebowitz and there was a blurred filing cabinet at an odd angle in the foreground while some unknown person handed a file over in front of Megan. In other words, a typical first attempt by someone yet to read the instructions. The thing was, there was the sharpest crease running down most of the filing cabinet, folding it away, together with another one, folding away Rafe and Megan and leaving... Blair. Alone. Highlighted. And tucked away in Jim's wallet.

Blair had finished his tea, slipped the picture carefully back into Jim's wallet, gone to bed and never asked. There were times he’d wanted to, times he’d caught Jim looking at him when he’d thought he might. But the words had always died in this throat because out loud they just sounded so fucking dumb.

 _Hey, Jim! Found that picture you carried in your wallet a while back. Did you mean it to be of me, or is that just how it...um...fit in there?_

Kill me now, had usually been his next thought.

Until that had nearly happened and he woke up in a hospital bed with only the dimmest recollection of a truck, a bullet and a headlight. Jim was squeezing his hand so hard it hurt worse than his ribs and Jim's face was close, beautifully close. And then he heard a sound he didn't understand until he saw Jim pull a hand away to wipe a sleeve across his eyes.

Before he could get his tired mind around any of that, he was kissed. Just the once. To the side of his mouth and just a peck really. But it quickened his heart and moved his blood back through it enough for him to gasp and pinch Jim's sleeve. He got another kiss for that, a better one, and some words he struggled to hold onto before going back under. He closed his eyes and felt like smiling at the hand in his hair and the thumb stroking his wrist.

He dreamed of filing cabinets and tigers, of drums and running, and he awoke sore and grateful as the daily noise of hospital life eventually seeped through. Jim was gone and a baseball cap was on the chair next to the bed as some kind of calling card that made no sense to anyone but Blair. Blair looked at the cap and then at his wrist. He smiled at his own fancy and finally understood the precision of that goddamn crease.

After all, the same careful thumbprint was on him now.

******


End file.
